Idaho Energy Projects Point to the Future

9/7/2010
The state of Idaho and its universities are miles ahead of a recent report by the Brookings Institution that urges the rest of the nation to look to the Mountain West for clean alternative energy solutions.

The report, titled “Centers of Innovation: Leveraging the Mountain West Innovation Complex for Energy System Transformation,” is a call to action, but not really for Idaho.

Authors Mark Muro and Sarah Rahman recommend a more collaborative agenda at the nation’s energy research labs in place of the more “siloed” approach that focuses on discrete fuel sources. They say that the current strategy isn’t working when it comes to the massively complex task of building a new energy system.

This is something Idaho leaders have already been saying.

Earlier this year, panelists at an Idaho Business Review roundtable on research and technology emphasized that brick and mortar facilities are valuable to driving innovation, but that without a clear focus, they can become “expensive boondoggles.”

“You can find the money, you can usually find the space, but the biggest obstacle I see is a lack of planning up front and understanding exactly what is a research park and what are you trying to accomplish with them,” said Jack McIver, vice president of research at the University of Idaho. “We have lots of research parks in this state one way or another. Most of them you don’t hear about for the very simple reason that they aren’t working very well.”

Munro and Rahman suggest, though, that Idaho is already developing the kind of communal approach they’re seeking.

They note that the Idaho National Laboratory already has a “systems approach” that “extends from concept to technology transfer, and on through to commercialization.” They point to this as a model.

But, maybe even more surprisingly, the authors call attention to a number of research efforts already underway that are the result of the collaborative vision of state and university leaders.

Consider the following:

The Idaho National Laboratory, the Idaho Accelerator Center and the state’s universities already boast an array of state-of-the-art tools, like the CAVE system, a sophisticated virtual modeling technology that will soon be in use at the Center for Advanced Energy Studies. It will help engineers work on advanced projects like the Next Generation Nuclear Plant.

The center itself, a partnership between Idaho’s three public universities, private industry and INL, is a model of multi-institutional collaboration, according to the report.

The universities, too, seem to appreciate the need for collective energy research.

The University of Idaho has built up expertise in biomass and biodiesel, and the university’s Integrated Design Lab is developing high-performance energy efficient buildings.

Cutting-edge research on wind energy forecasting, energy storage for grid integration and geothermal data at Boise State University is also leading the way nationally.

The list goes on, with efforts like the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, the IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence and the Idaho Water Resources Research Institute in Boise.

The report concludes that the Mountain West’s research universities and national laboratories must work with industry, entrepreneurs, investors and government to build new “project-oriented” complexes. The federal government would also need to spend an additional $1 billion to $2 billion annually to establish an effective network of researchers who would work together.

That’s a sound conclusion. It’s fortunate that Idaho’s joint projects are already leading the way

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